


Blood in the Water

by oceansgrey



Series: Kisame Week 2019 [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Itachi dies like usual sorry :(, Kisame Week 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 08:20:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20060914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oceansgrey/pseuds/oceansgrey
Summary: "Like a shark when blood was spilled in the water, he was there for a fight, killing for fun."





	Blood in the Water

His specialty is killing comrades. He said so himself, if anyone lived long enough to ask.

Since graduating the academy at ten, Kisame had always had a talent for killing. Killing sated a bloodlust that lay inside every Hoshigaki, their killer instinct lying dormant to maintain the façade of being human. The smell of blood was more aromatic to him than the smell of sweets or the scents others tended to find tantalizing. It seemed to awaken a state of frenzy, a desire for more, more, more, the feel of hot blood splashing onto his face, the taste of the tangy iron on his tongue enough to make his eyes roll back in ecstasy. It was like scratching an irritating inch, a wave of relief and calm flooding through his system as he tore enemies limb from limb.

Killing for his country, his village, allowed for him to satiate this need. In the era of the Bloody Mist, an era he grew up in, it gave him the perfect opportunity to act upon those carnal instincts.

Nothing felt quite as good as letting Samehada shred someone to ribbons, watching blood and viscera spill at his feet. Reducing men to a bloody pile of limbs and flesh made that hunger grow, watching Samehada grow stronger and larger the more chakra it absorbed. He was one of the Mist’s best, one of the legendary few selected to be a Swordsman. The bloody reign allowed for him to kill whoever he pleased, savoring the screams of those who betrayed the village.

His classmates had called him disgusting, not human, a freak of nature.

Enemies called him a monster, because he was one to them. Never to innocent people who didn’t deserve violence, but to the men who desired a fight to test their mettle, lying about being stronger than the Monster of the Hidden Mist.

His clan had been proud, when they had been alive, of his strength at such a young age, the massive amounts of chakra he possessed.

Like a shark when blood was spilled in the water, he was there for a fight, killing for fun.

“We are both human, not fish,”

Those words, from someone wise beyond their years, startled him to the core.

For years, living as the demon shark of the Hidden Mist, a scourge known throughout the shinobi world, he had never thought himself truly human.

His partner, he originally thought, was not human. The insane power behind those crimson eyes too god-like to belong to just a child of thirteen.

Kisame could smell the blood he tried hiding, the predatory sense at the copper scent at first giving the desire to find someone, tear into flesh until nothing but blood remained. Itachi tried coughing quietly, deep crimson seeping from his lips as he brought the sleeve of his cloak up to wipe at his mouth.

Watching Itachi grow up over the eight years of their partnership, seeing him at his lowest, coughing up handfuls of blood, he learned that his partner was human, terribly so.

Kisame liked to believe he was still the ruthless killer he had been in his younger years, despite not being very old. He lied to himself that he would abide by his favorite motto as he handed Itachi a handkerchief to dab at the blood threatening to spill past those pale thin lips from his most recent coughing fit.

“The weak are meat, the strong eat,” Itachi repeated to him, looking up at him with eyes that looked too lifeless for a man so young. “Isn’t that what you always say?”

Kisame shrugged, watching Itachi from across the table at the teashop that they had stopped at because he had noticed his partner’s movements becoming more sluggish as they travelled.

“It’s something I say often, I suppose,”

“Then why haven’t you killed me?”

“Because, Itachi,” Kisame handed him another cup of hot tea. “You’re stronger than me with those eyes of yours,”

“Killing comrades is your specialty. You said it when we met,”

“Why the sudden interrogation?”

Itachi reluctantly took the cup of tea from Kisame, his younger partner looking genuinely upset. To the normal eye, Itachi looked the same stone-faced youth he was, but Kisame had picked up on his tells, the way his eye twitched when he was upset, the tug of his lip threatening to turn into a frown, the tight grip on the teacup.

“If you’re genuinely curious,” Kisame said, looking at Itachi. “I enjoy your company in this organization. We do a lot of awful things, and you make it less so,”

Itachi gave him the barest hint of a smile, taking a bite of his sweet pastry.

It was downpouring at the abandoned Uchiha hideout, now absolutely demolished from the battle between the brothers.

Kisame looked down at Itachi’s body, Zetsu and Tobi by his side. Blood pooled out of Itachi’s mouth, skin now a sickly pale color. The blood smelled stale, of sickness and heartbreak. The rain should have washed it away, but it only made it look worse, the puddle of sticky crimson threatening to creep over to where Sasuke was lying on the ground beside him, unconscious.

For once, blood didn’t make him want to act on his instincts.

Instead, it made him feel sick.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Let me know what you think!


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